Have you started an exercise program yet?

Of course watching what you eat has more to do with the weight loss than the walk.

As for monitoring your weight, note that we have a large variability from day to day, based largely on what our water retention happens to be at the moment. As a result even if your real weight is pretty steadily moving downwards, what you see day to day won't always look like it.

One solution is to just take readings once a week. A better one is to keep a moving average. The latter gives you more feedback.

To do the moving average get 10 day's weighings and take the average of them. This is your starting trend. Then every day move the trend 1/10'th of the way towards your current weight reading. (eg If your trend said 276.2 and you weigh in at 272, your next trend is 275.8.) This keeps an exponentially weighted moving average of where your weights have been. (It always lags a few days behind your real weight.)

As long as your trend moves down substantially more often than up, you are losing weight. Even if you weigh more today than yesterday, that is OK. That is a normal daily fluctuation. Even if you go 3 days at the same weight, that is fine.

And when you stop dieting, keep a record of that trend. If it goes above where you want it to be, that is an early warning that you are putting the pounds back on...

Like most things in life, weight and fitness are not a matter of seeing the light. Rather they are a matter of starting and then keeping good habits...

Cheers,
Ben

Post #31,603 by ben_tilly 3/11/02 10:04:28 AM Reply	Have you started an exercise program yet? Such as the one you were pointed at which started out very gradually and slowly worked its way up? Or started monitoring your weight? (Not necessarily doing anything about it. Just trying to establish enough to have a baseline should you choose to.) Combined they take all of 20 minutes per day to do. And feeling slightly more fit will pay for the effort fairly quickly. Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #31,654 by nking 3/11/02 1:30:03 PM Reply	yes I have, been walking taking a brisk walk for 15 minutes a day. Sometimes in the local mall, sometimes down the street. So far I went from 278 pounds to 274 pounds in about a week or so. I've also been watching what I eat. "Will work for fair salary and benefits, seeking company with integrity."
Post #31,665 by ben_tilly 3/11/02 2:12:53 PM Reply	Sounds good Of course watching what you eat has more to do with the weight loss than the walk. As for monitoring your weight, note that we have a large variability from day to day, based largely on what our water retention happens to be at the moment. As a result even if your real weight is pretty steadily moving downwards, what you see day to day won't always look like it. One solution is to just take readings once a week. A better one is to keep a moving average. The latter gives you more feedback. To do the moving average get 10 day's weighings and take the average of them. This is your starting trend. Then every day move the trend 1/10'th of the way towards your current weight reading. (eg If your trend said 276.2 and you weigh in at 272, your next trend is 275.8.) This keeps an exponentially weighted moving average of where your weights have been. (It always lags a few days behind your real weight.) As long as your trend moves down substantially more often than up, you are losing weight. Even if you weigh more today than yesterday, that is OK. That is a normal daily fluctuation. Even if you go 3 days at the same weight, that is fine. And when you stop dieting, keep a record of that trend. If it goes above where you want it to be, that is an early warning that you are putting the pounds back on... Like most things in life, weight and fitness are not a matter of seeing the light. Rather they are a matter of starting and then keeping good habits... Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman

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